Restless
by silentfyre
Summary: Short story based the night the war ends. Post GOW 3 Baird and Sams thoughts about the war ending. First thing I've posted here. Please keep criticism constructive. Second chapter wasn't planned and it's not very long and a bit rushed, but just something I wanted to get out of my head.
1. Chapter 1, Baird and Sam

Damon Baird never usually had trouble sleeping. He slept through anything, whether he was in the back of a Raven, or with the sound of heavy gunfire in the background, even through Cole's snoring. Not tonight though. Tonight was very different. Today, the war had finally ended. After 17 years of fighting the locust war, it was over, and it was hard to believe. Hard for everyone. He'd been restless all night, and he'd been having nightmares as well. This was very strange for him, as he never had bad dreams. In fact, he barely dreamt at all. Cole said he always slept like a baby, not a peep through the whole night. It wasn't just the bad dreams keeping him up tonight though, it was everything. The loss of his friend and fellow soldier Dominic Santiago, the revelation that Adam Fenix had known about the locust being underground before they emerged. What would the world be like now the war was over. Would the stranded finally drop there grudge against the Cog? Not likely. Would they have the same trouble with the stranded gangs like they had when they were on Vectes. That was a short lived period of peace, he thought. All these questions were driving him insane. He couldn't just lie there restless all night, so decided to take a walk. He got out of bed, quietly as not to wake Cole who he was sharing a room with. He put his armour on, and picked up his lancer, mainly out of a 17 year old habit. Also it couldn't hurt to be armed this late on this island that he barely knew. Azura, the place they'd ended up, this hidden island that none of them even knew about. The place where Adam Fenix was held prisoner by Prescott, to continue his research on the lambent organism that almost took over the planet. Adam had managed to produce a countermeasure to destroy the lambent and locust. To do this he'd been injecting himself with lambent cells, which resulted in his death. Baird could still see the sight of him dying right before their very eyes, right before his son's eyes. But the bomb went of as planned, reaching across all of Sera, wiping out the locust and anything infected by the lambent as well.

This island, was kept hidden for so long, by a maelstrom. An artificial storm that permanently hid the island. Baird couldn't get his head around the fact that there were loads of scientists, engineers people with various other useful expertise here, living in this luxury, when the rest of the world was struggling to survive. Most of them were dead now. But if this place wasn't here, then the lambent and locust wouldn't have been wiped out. He wondered if he hadn't joined the Cog and had been an engineer like he wanted, would he have ended up here because of his expertise?

He wandered aimlessly around the island, trying to relax, something he hadn't really done since he joined the Cog. There weren't many people about this late. He did see a few drunken Gears stumbling back to there makeshift accommodation. He did wonder where they got the booze from. Dizzy, most likely, as he was known for often making his own moonshine. The fancy hotel like accommodation had taken a lot of damage. But it was still the best accommodation he'd had in years.

He made his way down to the shore, in the hopes that maybe the sound of the ocean and roaring waves may drown out some of his thoughts. He was about to sit down when he saw another figure sitting on the beach not too far away. They hadn't noticed him yet. He walked a little closer and then realised it was Samantha Byrne. Him and Sam had never truly gotten along. She was always winding him up, pushing his buttons and always, had to have the last word. But he did feel truly bad for her after he heard about Dom's death. Baird didn't quite know what Sam felt for Dom, but it didn't take a genius to figure out that she wanted more than a close friendship from the man. If he was perfectly honest it almost made him feel a little jealous. Not that he had feelings for Sam in that way, he just thought, why him and not me? Baird had never had the best luck with women. Being best friends with Cole, a former famous thrashball player, didn't help. Everyone loved him, and if they did talk to any women, Baird always felt a bit ignored by them, as they always favoured Cole. Cole was always so oblivious to any women who flirted with him, much to Baird's amusement. Cole said Baird's bad luck with women was down to Baird's bad attitude. He was probably right. It wasn't just Sam's attraction to Dom, and Cole's general confidence around women that bothered him slightly. Also his Sargent, Marcus Fenix, was in a 'not so secret any more' relationship with Lieutenant Anya Stroud. She wasn't really Baird's type, but he recognized beauty when he saw it. Also he knew that a lot of other male gears that knew of their 'secret' relationship were envious of Marcus. He'd even heard that some of the other female members of the cog, were jealous of Anya. Baird was a bit envious of Marcus, not because of Anya, but because he had better luck with women. Marcus always turned them down of course, but Baird never seemed to get that sort of attention from women. Well, not since he joined the military. When he was younger, and the son of very wealthy parents, he had women after him then. The realisation over the years that it was only his money they were after, made him resent women, and realise that without the money, why anyone would want to be with him.

Baird wasn't sure whether or not to go up to Sam or not, and if he did, what would he say to her. He'd never had a proper conversation with her before. In fact another thought on his mind was some of the things he'd said to Sam. Some of the wise cracks he'd made about her and Dom.

"She must think I'm a complete ass hole" He thought to himself. He stood there for a while, deciding whether to strike up a conversion with her of leave the poor girl in peace. He decided in the end to go over and make sure she was ok.

Sam Byrne walked down to the shore and sat down. She couldn't sleep tonight. Now that the war was over and there might be a chance of peace, she thought that she'd sleep easy. But that's just it. No one was used to peace. It made people uneasy. Especially after the locust armies seemed to be wiped out after the sinking of Jacinto, then the lambent problem reared its ugly head. How did they know that another bigger, badder enemy wasn't around the corner. How would society function now. There were other things on Sam's mind as well. The main one being the loss of her good friend Dom. He had sacrificed himself to save herself, Anya, Dizzy and Marcus. Dom didn't have much left in this world. He lost his brother Carlos in the pendulum wars, the 80 year long conflict over fuel. Imulsion, Sera's main fuel source which turned out to be the living organism that nearly took over the planet. Dom also lost his parents and his two children on emergence day. Then the disappearance of his beloved wife, Maria whom he searched for for 10 years. Unfortunately he found her too late, after she'd been a prisoner of the locust for goodness knows how long. Whatever the locust had done to her had left her pretty much brain-dead, so he had no choice but to put her out of her misery. After that, the only thing he really had left was Marcus, his best friend and brother, not by blood but a brother none the less. She knew that Dom gave his life to save them all, but mainly to save Marcus. So he could live on, finish he started and live the rest of his life. Dom knew that he had nothing left to live for if Marcus was gone, but Marcus still had his father to save, and his love for Anya. She couldn't even imagine how Marcus was feeling after losing Dom, and losing his father. Anya really had her work cut out for herself.

She still couldn't believe Dom was gone. No one could really. He was always there. At one point she wanted more than anything to pursue a romantic relationship with the man. But deep down she knew that Dom was broken beyond repair. Also she knew that he could never love her the way he loved Maria. She knew that and it hurt to think about it.

Dom wasn't the only person on Sam's mind tonight. Shortly after Anya Marcus and herself had met up again with Cole and Baird on Azura, Marcus had dropped the bombshell that Dom hadn't made it. Before they went there separate ways, Baird had said to Sam

"Take care of yourself, ok" To which she'd polity replied

"Yeah, you to Baird" Baird had never really said a kind word to her before. She figured that he was being nice because of Dom's death. But maybe, just maybe there was something more behind it.

She's never really gotten on well with Baird. He could be an arrogant, rude, selfish bastard most of the time. She loved winding him up though. She wasn't really sure why. Maybe it was just some to take out her frustration out on. He wasn't exactly pleasant to her either. Maybe if she was nicer to him, he would be as well. She knew that he didn't really get along with female gears. Except for Anya He never gave her any grief, but that was probably because if he did, he'd have Marcus to answer to. Marcus was so lucky to have a woman as patient as Anya. She hadn't spoken much to Anya about their relationship, but she knew they'd been together for a long time. She must really love him. Sam respected Marcus, but found him very hard to read sometimes. Anya really does have the patience of a saint, she thought to herself. She hoped for Anya's sake that Marcus would one day open up a bit more, and be more public about their relationship. Sam wondered if she'd ever find someone to have a relationship with. The state that the world was in hadn't left a lot of time for relationships over the past 17 years. The only man she considered a possible relationship with was now gone, and that probably wouldn't have worked anyway.

She was interrupted from her thoughts when she heard someone behind her. Startled she turned around standing up reaching for her lancer out of habit. She stopped when she realised that it was just a fellow Gear. She peered into the darkness making out the figure, getting ready to shoot if needed. She soon recognised them.

"Baird is that you, you scarred the shit out of me. You should never sneak up on a gear, I could have shot you damn it" She said angrily

"And it's nice to see you to" he replied sarcasticly.

"What are you doing out here anyway" she asked

"I couldn't sleep. You?"

"I couldn't sleep either"

He sat down next to her and the pair sat in awkward silence for a while. They'd never really had a real conversation, unless it was work related, or they were insulting one another.

"So why can't you. . . "

"You can't sleep eithe. . . ." They both began at the same time, breaking the silence.

"You go" He said

"So what's keeping you from sleeping?" She asked

Baird sighed, not sure whether to tell her all the thoughts that had been troubling him, or just blame his restlessness on Cole's snoring. But he continued.

"Just, everything really. Find it hard to believe the war is over for one thing"  
"Never thought it would end" She replied. "Thought we'd be fighting for all of our lives"

"Well, we may be. How do we know how the human race is gonna be after this? We're still no friends to the stranded. Remember the problems we had on Vectes?"

"I don't think we know what peace really feels like" She said, sadly.

"Right now I'm half expecting grubs to emerge from the ground, or a stalk to come out of the ground. Maybe it's the peace, the silence, that's keeping me awake. Ironic huh"

Sam just nodded.

"After we thought we'd wiped out the locust, then the lambent showed up. I keep thinking there's another enemy round the corner, just waiting to fuck up our lives once again" She said

"That what's keeping you up?" He asked

"That. Not just that"

He knew what else, and simply said "Thinking about Dom?"

"Yeah" She said, her voice almost a whisper.

He knew it was a very delicate subject and didn't really know what to say.

"I'll miss him to. I mean, we weren't best buds, but, I fought alongside the man for over 3 years. Never had a problem with him, he was just always there. Now he's gone, I . ." He trailed off

"What" She asked

"I wish I'd made more of an effort to get to know him better" He said

He was surprised he was even having this conversation with her. He usually only opened up to his best friend, Cole about stuff like this.

She lowered her head slightly

"I tried to get to know him. I wanted to get him to open up and talk about everything he'd lost. Never really knew what to say though, and I know that some wounds just don't heal"

He chose his words carefully, then went on to say

"I know how you, felt about him. I'm, I'm sorry"

"Thank you" She said softly appreciating the gesture.

She had to admit, he was the last person she thought she'd be having this conversation with. She was going to talk to Anya about everyting, but changed her mind. Anya had Marcus to worry about. In fact everyone was worried about Marcus. To lose your best friend, your brother like that must have been extremely hard. And the loss of his father as well, damn. How he's holding it together was beyond her. She often wondered if he opened up more to Anya, when they were alone. Or to Dom. That got her thinking about Dom again, causing her to feel a pang of sadness.

"Sam"

"Yeah"

"I'm sorry, ok. Sorry for any wisecracks I made about you and Dom. If I had any idea that he'd . . . . not be with us one day . . ."

"It's ok Baird. Really."

"I know it's probably none of my business but, did anything ever, happen between you two?

He was expecting an angry response for asking such a personal question.

She simply replied

"No. We were just good friends. I mean, I did flirt with him a bit, and you know Dom. always the polite and friendly one"

"Did you, I mean were you in . .

"In love?" She cut him off.

She thought long and hard about her answer.

"No. I wasn't. Maybe in love with the idea of him. The man he once was. A devoted husband and father, a man who never gave up hope looking for his wife. But deep down I knew he could never feel the way about me that he felt for Maria. That, and I always felt. . ." she trailed off

"What" He asked

"I guess I felt that I wasn't good enough for him"

Baird was surprised at that statement.

"Not good enough? Why did you think you weren't good enough"

"C'mon Baird. You saw that photo he carried around of him with Maria."

"Yeah, I saw it. What of it?" He asked

"She was really beautiful. I could never compete with that." she admitted

Baird didn't know how to respond to that. He wanted to reassure her, but at the same didn't want her to get the wrong idea.

He finally said

"Sam, if it turned out he didn't want to be with you, I'm sure it would've had nothing to do with the way you are. Or the way you look"

That was the closest thing she'd ever gotten to a compliment from him before.

"Shit Baird was that a compliment? From you?"

"I guess it was. Now lets never speak of it again"

She chuckled slightly.

Another silence followed. Baird was contemplating whether or not to talk to her about his nightmare. He wanted to talk to someone about it so he asked

"Sam? Do you ever have nightmares"

"Yeah. Sometimes"

"Well, I never did. Not till tonight anyway. Another reason I couldn't sleep"

"Never?" She replied, surprised. "Not during the whole locust war?"

"Nope" He replied

"How bad were they"

"Bad" He said.

"Wanna talk about it?" She asked

"Nope, not really" he replied

"Sometimes it helps to talk"

Baird let out a sigh. He wasn't planning on talking to anyone about them. But, she was here, and seemed to genuinely want to help. So he began to speak about his dream.

"We were fighting the locust, but it was almost every creature we had ever faced. We were outnumbered and fast losing people. I tried to hold them off, trying to save everyone, but I couldn't, I couldn't save anyone. Somehow I'd survived and the locust had gone, somehow. But everyone was dead"

"Everyone?" She asked

"Yeah"

She remained silent not knowing what to say

"Even Cole" He said as if it hurt to much to say it.

The only other person that survived in his dream was Sam. He didn't know what that meant and didn't tell her that either. She gently put her hand on him arm. Baird was surprised at the contact, but didn't reject it, in fact at this moment he really appreciated it.

"It's ok. It's only a nightmare"  
"But why now. 17 years of living this, nightmare and nothing. Now its over why did the nightmares begin"

"Maybe because we've been living this nightmare for so long, you mind can't cope with the fact that it's over. So your subconscious is creating what you conscience is missing. Or something like that"

"Yeah. Maybe that's it"

They sat in silence again for a bit.

Baird wasn't expecting to have a long conversation with her. All he really wanted to do was be alone. But he was actually enjoying the company. He wanted to carry on talking, before she went back for the night, but couldn't think of anything else to say.

Sam got up

"Well I better go and try to get some more sleep. I'm sure we'll all be needed for something in the morning" she said

"You don't have to go just yet do you" His reply sounding a lot more needy than he intended

"Aww, you gonna miss me" she teased

"What? No, it's just... I, um" he stumbled over his words

"C'mon, lets go. I'll even walk you back to your room so your not scared"

"Shut up. I'm perfectly capable of walking back on my own"

"Ok, well I'll see you tomorrow I guess"

She began walking, without him, soon enough Baird stood up

"Wait up, I'm coming" He shouted after her.

They didn't say much to each other on the way back to their makeshift accommodation. She did walk with him back to the room he shared with Cole.

"Um" He began, wanting to thank her for the talk.

"Thanks"  
"For what" She replied

"For the talk. And for listening to me as well. Most people don't bother"

Sam was very tempted to reply with a sarcastic comment about why no one listens to him, but instead, she replied

"Well, thanks for listening to me as well. Goodnight, and I hope you get some sleep"

"Hopefully, and you to" He said.

He watched as she walked down the hall, then when she was out of sight, he entered the room. Cole was awake.

"Was wondering were you'd got to" He said, sounding weary.

"Oh, just talking to a, friend" It was weird referring to her as a friend. But he thought back on the conversation they'd had, and the company he shared with her tonight, and he couldn't help but smile a bit.

Cole noticed the small smile on his face.

"What are you so happy about?"

"Oh. . .nothing" He replied.


	2. Chapter 2, Marcus and Anya

It was late, and it was quiet. A little too quiet for his liking. After nearly 18 years at war with the locust, he wasn't used to this silence. No one was. Marcus had been staring up at the ceiling for the last hour at least. It had been three weeks. Just three weeks since the war had finally ended. He'd pretty much been running on auto pilot since then. He'd hardly slept much recently, kept awake at night by the memories of all he had lost. The father he discovered was alive after all, only to lose him again. The memory of his brother and best friend sacrificing himself to save them all stuck in his memory the most. It was still hard to believe that he was gone. Marcus had known Dom since he was 10 years old. They'd grown up together and fought together for so many years. He never thought that he'd lose him. He certainly never realised how different life would be without him around, and he was still getting used to it. After losing Dom, to lose the Father he was reunited with, had taken its toll on him. Everyone had been different around him. Unsure what to say to him. Some people were extra nice to him, even Baird managed to retrain from being his usual sarcastic self around him. He appreciated it, but he wanted things back to normal. What ever normal was now anyway. Even though the war was over, people were still on edge. No one was used to peace, it made them nervous, especially not Marcus, who had lost so much already and couldn't face losing anyone else.

He did take comfort in the fact that the one person that he really couldn't bear to lose, was laying beside him, sleeping sweetly and silently. This had been the first night he'd spent with her since the war ended. Well he'd never actually spent the whole night with her. In all the years of his relationship with her, he'd always left halfway through the night. He'd never even told her that he loved her, even though he did, with all his heart and soul. He felt incredibly guilty about that, but could never really put his feelings into words. He never quite understood that no matter what, she'd always welcome him with open arms. What the hell did she see in him anyway, she could do so much better. She was much too good for him and he knew it. He was afraid that now the war was over, and peace was on the horizon, that she may leave him for someone else. He knew he had to start being a better man for her, and he was going to start by staying with her the whole night. She deserved that much at least. He turned around to face her, careful not to wake her. She looked so beautiful and peaceful. How could he even think about leaving. He needed her just as much as she needed him. Moving closer to her, not wanting to wake her up, he gently pulled her into his arms. Subconsciously she moved closer to him, sighing in her sleep. He suddenly felt more relaxed with her laying in his arms, and just like that, sleep became a lot easier for him.

In the early hours of the morning, Anya slowly began to wake up. She felt a pair of large arms wrapped around her. But it was morning. He'd never stayed all night before. She looked up to see her lover laying beside her. She couldn't believe he stayed, he never had before and she'd gotten so used to waking up alone. He actually looked peaceful for a change. For a few minutes she watched the man she loved sleep. For the first time in years she actually felt truly happy. It was like another barrier in their relationship had been broken down. She felt closer to him than ever before. The last few weeks, he'd been so distant. She understood after everything he had lost, after all she was still morning the loss of her good friend Dom as well. But she knew how hard it was for Marcus. She knew that she just had to be patient with him. He showed up at her room late last night, and for the first time in three weeks, he actually talked to her about how he was feeling. That was another barrier broken, as she usually had to pry any information like that out of him. She certainly didn't expect that from him, nor did she expect to be waking up in the morning beside him.

She was shaken from her thoughts when he began to stir in his sleep. He slowly open his eyes to see her looking up at him. He smiled softly at her, something he rarely did in front of anyone else.

"Morning" he said gruffly and half asleep

"Good morning" She said back softly realising that she'd never said those words to him as he had woken up before

She couldn't help smiling at him.

"What?" He asked

"Oh nothing. Just happy that your still here" She replied.

"You better get used to that" he said pulling her closer.

She closed her eyes again and smiled to herself, knowing that things could only possibly get better from now on. Hopefully.


End file.
